Court Halts Firings at Commerce, Other Agencies as Shutdown Continues Into 15th Day
The government shutdown that's affecting most FCC operations (see 2510010065) appeared set to continue into a 15th day after the Senate again failed Wednesday afternoon to reach the 60-vote threshold to invoke cloture on a motion to proceed on the Republicans’ House-passed continuing resolution (HR-5371), which would reopen the FCC and other federal agencies through Nov. 21. The upper chamber voted 51-44, its ninth unsuccessful attempt to advance the measure. It wasn’t immediately clear whether Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., would tee up another vote on HR-5371 for Thursday. He hasn’t agreed to further votes on Democrats’ CR counteroffer (S-2882), which would restore federal appropriations through Oct. 31 and bring back CPB’s rescinded $535 million funding for FY 2026. The Senate has repeatedly rejected that measure along party lines.
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Meanwhile, the U.S. District Court in San Francisco temporarily halted the Trump administration’s use of reductions in force (RIFs) to lay off employees at the Commerce Department and other federal agencies, which began last week (see 2510100040). Judge Susan Illston on Wednesday granted a preliminary injunction sought by the American Federation of Government Employees and other federal labor unions to block the White House OMB and Office of Personnel Management (OPM) from firing more than 4,100 federal workers, including 315 within Commerce.
Illston’s order required the Trump administration to fully detail its RIF plans by Friday. “The evidence suggests that [OMB and OPM] have taken advantage of the lapse in government spending, in government functioning, to assume that all bets are off, that the laws don’t apply to them anymore and that they can impose the structures that they like on a government situation that they don’t like,” she said during the hearing.
OMB Director Russell Vought said Wednesday on the Charlie Kirk Show podcast that he expects the federal government to use RIFs to fire more than 10,000 workers.